Atlanta mayor defends crackdown on Wall Street protesters

Errin Haines

Thursday

Oct 27, 2011 at 12:10 AM

ATLANTA — A large group of demonstrators forcibly removed from a downtown park was released from jail Wednesday, with the future of the Occupy Atlanta protest unclear, and Mayor Kasim Reed vowing to enforce an 11 p.m. curfew on all city parks.

Reed said he does not regret his initial decision to allow protesters to remain at Woodruff Park, or his choice to arrest them when he believed things were headed in a direction that was no longer peaceful.

“I made it very clear on Saturday I felt that things had changed and that things were deteriorating,” Reed said. “There were some who wanted to continue along the peaceful lines, and some who thought that their path should be more radical. As mayor, I couldn’t wait for them to finish that debate.”

Reed spoke hours after Atlanta police arrested 53 people, many of whom had camped out at the park for weeks as part of a widespread movement that opposes Wall Street. The protesters were sleeping in the park in violation of city law, but Reed twice issued an executive order allowing them to remain. The latest order was set to expire Nov. 7, but Reed said the protest reached a turning point over the weekend when a hip-hop concert drew some 600 people to the park with no permit or security guards to monitor the crowd.

Outside the city jail Wednesday, several dozen supporters gathered to greet those being released and chant “Freedom!” The group was planning an evening march but organizers would not elaborate when asked about the future of the protest.

“We’re going to continue the occupation,” said Tim Franzen, one of the organizers. “We’re going to hold off on saying what specifically we’re going to do.”

Franzen, who was among those taken into custody by police, said the arrests had boosted support for the movement.

“Now we have more support coming out of the woodwork, and we’re excited to continue the occupation and shine a light on the economic injustices in this city and around the country,” he said.

State Sen. Vincent Fort, a Democrat from Atlanta, and Joe Beasley, southern regional director of the Rainbow-PUSH Coalition were also arrested at the park and had tough words for Reed, also a Democrat.

“Mayor Reed, what he did the other night was indefensible,” Fort said. “It’s indefensible legally, it’s indefensible morally, and he ought to be ashamed.”

Beasley added: “I’m going straight from here to get a recall petition. I don’t think the mayor is fit for office.”

Activist Derrick Boazman said, “I think Mayor Reed would do well to learn quickly that you cannot intimidate, you cannot threaten, you cannot jail something whose time has come. The fact of the matter is this movement’s time has come.”

Reed said, in addition to the unauthorized concert, he had serious security concerns that were heightened Tuesday when a man was seen in the park with an assault rifle. He said authorities could not determine whether the gun was loaded, and were unable to get additional information about it.

An Associated Press reporter talked to the man with the gun slung across his back earlier Tuesday as he walked in the park. He wouldn’t give his name, but said he was an out-of-work accountant who doesn’t agree with the protesters’ views but was there to protect the rights of people to protest.

There’s no law that prevents him from carrying the gun in public, but police followed him for about 10 minutes before moving off.

Reed said he would not be issuing any more executive orders for the protesters. Woodruff Park remained closed, and it was not clear when it might reopen.

Officials have said that as many as 150 police officers — including SWAT teams in riot gear, dozens of officers on motorcycles and several on horseback — took part in the operation to clear the park. Atlanta police had also been working 12-hour shifts over the weekend to observe the park protest.

Before police moved in, Reed said he spoke with other mayors and learned how other cities had dealt with the protesters. Reed said Atlanta police created barricades and offered people an opportunity to leave before the arrests were made, a tactic borrowed from the Chicago protests.

“Some of the things that we learned ... improved the result that we had and the treatment of the people that were arrested,” he said.

Before police marched in, the Atlanta protesters were warned a couple times around midnight to vacate the park. Most were cleared by about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday.